CHAPTER VII.

"If I depart from thee, I cannot live :
And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap ?"

"IT can scarcely have escaped the notice of the most casual observer, supposing him to be a little more of the peripatetic order than a bulbous root, that there are persons possessing the influence of wealth labouring under the, oftentimes, imaginary disadvantage of birth and aristocratic connexions. What, however, will not gold effect? Look around, and we shall, among other of its marvellous effects, find it mingling the puddle blood of the plebeian with blood as pure as that of the Ptolemies.

"Within a mile of Wynford Grange there was a newly built, prim-looking building, called Franka Villa. It had been erected in accordance with the taste of its late proprietor, Mr. Francis James Jones, a successful speculator in indigo, and christened by the present occupier, Mrs. Francis James Jones, now a widow, fair, stout, and, if truth must be told, a little over that standard age for widows, forty. The lucky dealer in the plant for dying blue, wanting an investment for his accumulated wealth, became the purchaser of a large portion of the estate sold at the time Edward Flamstead became of age; resolving to build a house upon his property, retire from business, and become a country gentleman. The first two divisions of his design he lived to accomplish; but just as he began to discover the difference between a hare and a rabbit, a hound and a poodle, mounting his horse on the near, instead of the off, side, and ramming his shot into the gun after the introduction of the powder, he died.

Possessed of a handsome jointure, Mrs. Francis James Jones mourned for her husband in the most approved style. Her daughter, and only child, Emily Matilda, at this time a lisping miss of sixteen, was taken from a fashionable boarding-school to become the companion of her mamma, and, as the relict of the speculator in indigo fondly hoped, at no distant day, the link by which the Joneses might be coupled with the oldest and best family in the country. For it should be here stated, that the sanguine and watchful Mrs. Jones had, from the day she first beheld the elegant and accomplished Edward Flamstead, determined, in secret communing with herself, that Emily Matilda should become the bride of the heir-apparent to the Baronetcy. 'Only think,' would the ardent dame soliloquize, throwing out her farthingale and tossing back her head, frizzed and pow

dered as of yore, only think what the Browns will say when they hear of my daughter, Lady Edward Flamstead!'

"This brooding thought, perhaps dressed in other words, was often expressed; and, as may have happened with other architects so frequently met with in building magnificent edifices in the air, it is no wonder to people of less valuable, become more common sense, that the superstructure should occasionally totter from a want of due attention to the solidity of the base. We have often thought that the phenomenon of a shower of pebbles occasionally falling from the clouds should be no longer deemed a wonder, or subject of speculation to the philosopher; for when half mankind are occupied in building castles in the air, where is the wonder that a few of the stones should fall?

"It had been an absorbing desire for some time past with Mrs. Francis James Jones-her husband having been dead now for more than a year to see the spark of acquaintanceship which existed between Edward and Emily Matilda fanned into a burning, glowing, crackling, hissing flame of love. For

some cause, which the old lady could not fathom, little or no progress seemed to be made in the project. In vain did the careful mother study the latest fashions at Court, and, with lavish expenditure, deck her personified hope in all the finery of the age, when Edward was to be present. In vain did she invite Sir Godfrey and his son to snug little dinner parties, displaying her massive plate and costly wines, and making quite a show of her possessions. Sir Godfrey drank the wine, and Edward made himself agreeable to Emily Matilda; but further, there was nothing.

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""Tis very strange,' said Mrs. Jones, after a run of defeats, 'very strange indeed. They must want money, that every body knows, and yet all I can do makes no impression.' "That which excites the surpise of one may, like the discovered trick of the juggler, be no cause of wonderment to another; but to our purpose.